


rewards

by foxmagpie



Series: little gifts [3]
Category: Good Girls (TV)
Genre: Dad!Rio, F/M, domestic!rio
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-27
Updated: 2019-06-27
Packaged: 2020-05-20 11:42:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19376020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foxmagpie/pseuds/foxmagpie
Summary: Set before and during parts of 2x08. Beth and Rio bump into each other in front of other suburban moms, and Beth feels the eyes of judgment. Rio advises Jane on a life lesson, impressing Beth. Beth discovers Ruby stole her calendar and fights with Dean for losing all of her money by hiring teens to scare Rio.





	rewards

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Takes place during 2x08. Beth and Rio interact in front of other school moms. Beth discovers Ruby stole her calendar, and Beth and Dean fight when he gets all of her money stolen.
> 
> \---
> 
> “Elizabeth,” Rio says, once he’s within earshot. He makes her name sound like a term of endearment. He cracks a small smile, and she feels her heartbeat pick up the pace. Beth hears one of the women whisper, not as quietly as she thinks, “Ooh, he’s actually pretty cute when he smiles.”
> 
> Rio looks over at the woman, face impassive. She blushes and pretends to be highly distracted by something on the ceiling. Rio turns his attention fully back on Beth. 
> 
> “Hi,” she says, playing it casual. She’s trying to communicate with her eyes: _Not here!_ The other women don’t even pretend that they’re not eavesdropping. “What are you doing here?”
> 
> “Actually, this time’s just a coincidence,” Rio says. Deb mouths “this time?” to one of the other moms. Rio looks very pleased with himself; he can tell that the women are trying to figure out what's going on between the two of them, this mismatched pair, the "tattoo artist" and the "housewife." They have no idea how similar the two really are.

Dean’s a little cagey the next morning. He tells Beth that he has errands and then a “late lunch thing,” whatever that means, and asks Beth to handle “babysitting the kids.”

“Yeah… it’s not babysitting when they’re your kids,” Beth says slowly, squinting at Dean. How had she gone this long without putting a name to the way he makes her feel in their partnership? 

Dean looks agitated. “Beth. Just—can you do it or not?”

“Yes, of course,” Beth says. She’d been planning on updating the calendar, but she can make do. Actually, it’ll be good for all of them. They haven’t had an entire Saturday together for weeks now. “Don’t worry about it.” She almost channels Annie and adds a command for him to _chill_ after.

Beth plays a racecar video game with the boys, draws with the girls, and then they all bake cookies together. They watch _Moana_ (again) and then they open one of those science kits she’d ordered off the internet. She may not want this to be the entire scope of her life, but she feels pretty content during their naptime. She needed this. 

When the kids wake up, Danny asks if they can go to the park. Beth hesitates. It’s a perfectly normal request, it’s just that she’s come to so strongly associate the park with Rio.

“It'll be dark soon,” she says. She’s stretching the truth: in about an hour and a half, it’ll be dusk, but kids have almost no concept of time. “How about… Chuck E. Cheese?” 

The kids cheer and pile into the van. They’re even more excited when they get there and find one of Kenny’s swim friends there. Even better, his little brother, around Jane’s age, is having a birthday party, so they all get absorbed into this larger group dynamic quickly and easily.

Beth loads the kids up with cash to turn into tokens, and she goes to sit on a bench and observe when Kenny's friend's mom, Tracy, waves her over to chit chat with the other birthday party moms. Beth is vaguely familiar with many of them—some of their children go to the same school, and one of the moms is even a former “secret shopper.”

This part… this is the part she could do without. She used to be a master at small talk with the other suburban moms, but now? She can't muster up the energy to truly care about bake sales and the drama with the soccer coaches that wouldn't put their little darlings in the game for five more minutes.

“...and I emailed the teacher, who was  _so unhelpful_ ,” Cathy or Cindy, whatever-her-name-is, blathers on. “Jake’s just got a lot of energy. It’s not like he—oh, hey, ten o’clock. Look.”

Beth doesn’t immediately register the comment. She’s in sort of a trance, just nodding and _mhm_ ing when it seems appropriate. 

“Don’t make it obvious, but, Beth, there’s a guy checking you out. Ten o’clock,” a woman named Tracy says, nodding towards a mysterious man, but Beth delays looking. She doesn’t really care. 

“Yeesh, I wouldn’t peg you as his type,” Laurie (is that her name?) says. “No offense,” she adds as an afterthought.

 _Rude_ , Beth thinks to herself, but she can't muster up the energy to be offended. 

“That’s not offensive,” Deb, the secret shopper mom, scoffs. “He looks like a drug dealer!”

She doesn’t even have to look now. She just knows. She can feel his gaze burning her skin up. Usually, she gets a reprieve from him for a week (or more!) at a time; this will be the third time she's seen him this week alone. It's not that that's bad, necessarily. It's just that ever since they slept together... Well, what she thought would be like scratching an itch has turned into full-blown hives. She needs the cooldown periods to collect herself. 

“No, too clean-cut,” Cathy/Cindy says. “Those shoes look expensive.”

“Yeah, drug dealers make a lot of money,” insists Laurie. “Duh.”

“Tattoo artist?” Tracy suggests. “I don’t know who else gets a neck tattoo other than drug dealers and tattoo artists.”

Beth knows that they’re right—Rio _is_ a drug dealer, after all, as well as a money launderer and a kingpin—but she’s still offended on his behalf. These women have such small imaginations. 

“If he didn’t have the tattoo...” Tracy trails off.

Beth can sense that they’re attracted to him, even if they’re uncomfortable with their attraction to him. The realization makes her both vaguely jealous, but also a little triumphant. They would be scandalized if they knew, and that makes Beth feel a tiny bit powerful. 

When she finally fixes her gaze to ten o'clock, she sees Rio staring at her from across the arcade. He’s wearing one of his usual outfits, but his sleeves are rolled up and his hands are tucked into his pockets. He looks _good._  He nods once at her in acknowledgment.

“He’s acting like he _knows_ you,” Cathy/Cindy says, shock in her voice. “Do you know him?”

Beth has about one second to decide whether she’s going to lie or not, and when she sees Rio take a step towards her, she realizes she’s going to have to go with the truth. Or a half-truth. “Uh, yeah,” she says, squinting as if she has to work to place him. “You’re right. He was my sister’s tattoo artist.” The lie rolls off her tongue easily.

The other women still look skeptical of Rio. One of them looks half-terrified that he’s coming closer. Another looks a little excited.

“Elizabeth,” Rio says, once he’s within earshot. He makes her name sound like a term of endearment. He cracks a small smile, and she feels her heartbeat pick up the pace. Beth hears one of the women whisper, not as quietly as she thinks, “Ooh, he’s actually pretty cute when he smiles.”

Rio looks over at the woman, face impassive. She blushes and pretends to be highly distracted by something on the ceiling. Rio turns his attention fully back on Beth. 

“Hi,” she says, playing it casual. She’s trying to communicate with her eyes: _Not here!_ The other women don’t even pretend that they’re not eavesdropping. “What are you doing here?”

“Actually, this time’s just a coincidence,” Rio says. Deb mouths “ _this_ time?” to one of the other moms. Rio looks very pleased with himself; he can tell that the women are trying to figure out what's going on between the two of them, this mismatched pair, the "tattoo artist" and the "housewife." They have no idea how similar the two really are. Beth realizes that she’s about to be the subject of a lot of gossip. 

“You spend a lot of time at Chuck E. Cheese?” asks Beth, voice lined with a bit of subtle sarcasm, just enough that the women don’t notice, but Rio recognizes that she’s asking him if he followed her here. “Like the pizza, huh?”

“Nah,” Rio says. “But when my kid does a good job in school, this is one of his favorite rewards.” He gestures towards Marcus playing whack-a-mole with another little boy. 

"Oh," Beth breathes out. Beth’s surprised he answered a question. She can’t help but smile at Rio having a system of incentives and rewards for his son’s school performance. On one hand, it is hard to reconcile the version of Rio she knows with the version of him that appears to be a really good, present father. On the other hand, it seems to make perfect sense. “Well, it was nice to see you, but—” 

Just then, Jane barrels over to Beth. She clasps her little arms around Beth's legs and begs, “Mommy, can I _please_ have more money? I need more tickets to get Doc McStuffins.” She points to the prize area, where a small stuffed Doc McStuffin toy is labeled as requiring 75 tickets. 

“Honey, I’m sorry, you each got five dollars and that’s it,” Beth says. “Did you already spend it?”

“Mommy, _please_ ,” Jane begs. “I’ll be so good! You know I will. Mommy, _please_.”

“Li’l negotiator.” Rio nods, sizing Jane up. “Can’t imagine where she gets that from.”

“Jane,” Beth says, a note of warning in her voice. "There's plenty of other things to do here besides play the arcade games."

“Danny stole my turn!” Jane huffs. “He used my token to _lose_ at Angry Birds!”

Rio watches the exchange with interest. The other moms watch Rio watch Beth with interest. 

“Go get Danny and bring him over here,” Beth instructs. 

Jane instantly pouts. “He won’t! I already tried!” Jane crosses her arms, sighs in exaggerated exasperation, and turns around, away from her mother. She feels awkward: Rio knows she's a mom, but he's not really privy to what kind of mom she is. She feels self-conscious about how she's handling this, wondering what he's thinking about her, because she suspects Jane's about to have a meltdown. 

Instead, Jane spots Rio. “Mommy’s friend!” she says. The other moms exchange looks. “Do you have any money I could borrow?”

Beth is mortified. “Jane, honey, no—you can’t ask people that—” she scrambles. 

But Rio drops down to be at Jane’s eye-level. “Hi,” he says, and he offers her his softest smile. “Who are you?”

“Jane.”

“Jane,” he repeats. Does he realize this is the one whose dubby he saved? “Jane, tell me, what’d you do in school yesterday?” 

Beth goes to protest, but Rio shakes his head at her, then refocuses on the little girl in front of him. 

“Um, we had music class and recess and it was Cohen’s birthday so we had cupcakes—” Jane babbles. "I choose chocolate and..."

Jane blathers for a long time, but Rio waits patiently for her to finish. Then he asks her, “What was your favorite new thing you learned?”

“Oh!” Jane beams. “I learned about clocks.”

“Oh yeah? Whatchu know about clocks?” Beth’s reminded of Rio sitting at the picnic table with Kenny, going over his math homework, telling her she needed to get him a tutor.

"I can tell time now!" Jane declares. Rio nods along as Jane tells him about big hands and little hands and digital vs. “log” clocks. 

“Can you tell me what time it is?” Rio shows her his watch—it looks expensive. 

Jane grabs his wrist so that she can see it better, concentrates hard, and taps the glass with great exuberance as she counts the time. Beth expects Rio to react to the mishandling of the watch, but he says nothing. “It’s six…” She starts to count the little big hand. “Five, ten, fifteen, twenty…” She pushes the watch closer to her eyeballs so she can focus on the little ticks. “One, two, three! Six twenty-three!”

“Wow," Rio says. "Good job, darlin'."

Jane looks back at her mom and glows in the compliment. Beth doesn't even know how to react, she's just stunned.

“Y’know, I think you did such a good job I might just have an extra three dollars for you in my pocket." Jane starts bouncing on her feet. "You know how many tokens you get for three dollars?"

Jane looks stumped.

"You get five tokens for each dollar," Rio says. "So let's count how many tokens you gonna get. Now, your first dollar is gonna get you five." He holds up a hand and, with his other hand, counts off each finger, "One, two, three, four, five." 

Jane nods, concentrating.

"Now your second dollar, how much is that gonna get you?"

"Five!" Jane yells, pointing to Rio's other hand.

"Mhm, good," he agrees. "Now what are we gonna do about that third dollar?" 

Jane holds out one of her own hands proudly.

"Perfect," he says. "Now how many tokens is that total? Let's count all our fingers now." Jane counts them up individually. She hasn't yet made the connection between the multiples of five she knows from a clock face and multiples of five that exist elsewhere in the world. Jane struggles after ten, always forgets the number eleven, but Rio keeps her on track and she bursts with joy at the end and declares, "FIFTEEN!"

"Smartie," Rio says. "So dependin' how well you do at games, you're gonna win some tickets. But Doc McStuffins in 75 tickets. That's real expensive."

Jane looks over at the toy, hunger on her face.

"Three dollars aint gonna get you Doc McStuffins," Rio says, and he watches Jane's face carefully as she begins to compute this. "But, if you look at all those prizes there, in that glass case? There's some real good stuff over there. I think you should look it over."

Jane squints her eyes. “But I want Doc McStuffins…”

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Rio says. “I get it. You only got two choices, though. You either gotta save up your tickets, wait ‘til you come back and earn more…” Jane considers this, squirming. Patience is not exactly in her wheelhouse. “Or you gotta be open to the idea that there are a lotta other great toys within your budget.”

Jane’s mouth is a hard line as she deliberates. “Okay,” she finally says, defeated.

“You gonna tough it out? Pick a different toy?” Rio asks.

“Yeah,” Jane says. "I guess."

"Aight then," Rio says, and he holds his hand out for a high-five. Jane slaps it enthusiastically. 

“You don’t have to do this—” Beth says. 

“I know,” Rio responds. He stands up back up, pulls his wallet out of his back pocket, and hands Jane three crisp one dollar bills anyway. “You see that boy over there?” he asks Jane. He points out Marcus, now playing some racing game on a stationary motorcycle. Jane nods. “He’s real good at the Angry Birds game. He could teach you so next time you can beat your brother and show him who’s boss, yeah?”

Jane grins, then sprints off to introduce herself to Marcus.

“Thank you,” Beth says quietly to Rio. “Really, you didn’t have to—”

“‘S no problem, ma,” he says. Deb’s eyebrows shoot up. "Tokens, tickets. It's never too early to teach 'em about managing their money, real or otherwise."

Rio gives her a knowing smile. Beth thinks of the stacks and stacks and stacks of cash she's washed for him, the lessons he's been teaching her. 

“Really, I—” Beth tries once more, about to express her appreciation. 

Rio cuts her off with a laugh, though. “Damn, if you’re so worried about it, I’ll add it to your tab." Beth shakes her head; she wouldn't be surprised if he actually did do that. “I’ll call you soon, yeah?” He squeezes her arm, then heads off. Beth trails him with her eyes and sees him meet up with a woman with the same complexion and cheekbones as him—a sister? 

Beth doesn’t have much time to think about it, though.

“Okay,” Deb says. “That guy was _not_ just your sister’s tattoo artist.”

"Spill," Cathy/Cindy demands, putting a dainty hand to her chest, flustered. "He was  _so_ good with Janey!"

“Well—” Beth says, trying to think of something reasonable. She just _knows_ Rio knows he put her into this position. She wants to march over to his companion and put on a show for her, make Rio squirm for once. 

“Are you dating him?” asks Laurie. Her disapproval is stamped on her face. “I thought you were married.”

“Separated,” Beth supplies weakly. She watches Jane and Marcus run off towards the Angry Birds game, holding hands and giggling. 

“Is he your rebound? I’ve heard of lots of women going for guys that are _so_ not their type as rebounds,” Cathy/Cindy says very knowledgeably. “He looks younger.”

 _Yes_ , Beth admits to herself. In many ways, Rio is not her type. But in surprising ways, like the way he just handled Jane, diverting her from a meltdown with ease… 

“No,” Laurie says. “Look, you’re blushing. I don’t think he’s just a rebound. You _like_ that guy.” Laurie doesn't do much to hide her bafflement. She clearly thinks Rio is below Beth's station.

Beth feels her ears grow hot. She simultaneously wants wiggle out from under their scrutiny and to tell them to go fuck themselves. They think they know her; they think they know Rio; they don't know anything. 

Beth smiles. "He's just a friend," she offers.

"Oh come on," Deb says. "Don't play that—"

Beth is saved by her phone ringing. It’s Ruby.

Beth pretends it’s urgent, she has to take it, mouthing “so sorry,” as she picks up. Turns out, she’s not far off. Ruby sounds serious and asks Beth if she can come to meet her right now—no kids. Beth remembers how Ruby kept twisting her hands together the night before, and knows she needs to do this. Now. 

Beth scrambles to get the kids rounded up, trying to ignore the feeling that Rio is watching her battle Danny out of the ball pit and Emma out of the slide. Thankfully, Kenny's on the cusp of being a little too old for Chuck E. Cheese, so he's fine with leaving. Jane cries, though, upset that she didn't even have time to pick out a toy after all. Marcus tries to offer Jane one of his toys.

"Oh, no, sweetie, you earned this!" Beth says, handing the slinky back to him. "You keep it. We'll come back and get our prizes another day. Don't you worry."

Marcus still looks a little worried, so Beth offers him her kindest smile and he breaks out into a grin of his own. "Tell your daddy goodbye for us, okay?"

Beth calls Dean, but there’s no answer—she remembers that he had a “late lunch thing”—so she calls Judith, who agrees to take the kids on short notice, even offering for them to have a big sleepover with popcorn and movies. The promise of even more fun at Grandma's is the only thing that gets Jane to stop crying about being separated from her new friend. 

Beth drops them off, heads to Ruby’s, and walks into Ruby’s dining room to find her book club calendar on the table. Ruby's already crying.

Beth’s stomach sinks. “What’s this?”

–-

When Beth finally leaves Ruby’s house, she’s exhausted. Just last night, she’d been thankful for all the little ways Ruby was trying to save her from Annie’s questioning or Dean’s suspicions, and now Ruby had sat across from her, blubbering, begging for forgiveness, when she’d scoured Beth’s house for _evidence_ while Jane was missing? She's never felt so betrayed.

Beth is still riding this wave of fury when she unlocks her front door to find her darkened house. She’s relieved the kids aren’t here tonight: she doesn’t have the energy for one more thing. All she wants to do is pour herself a glass of Rio’s bourbon and take a bath.

But then Beth hears muffled grunting, someone trying to make words. She can’t figure out where it’s coming from. She rounds the corner into the kitchen and—there’s Dean, tipped over, duct taped to a chair, something stuffed into his mouth. 

“Oh my god!” She runs towards him. “Are you—?”

And then she sees that the mudroom door is _wide open_.

She starts sputtering “oh, no, no, no, no, no” as she runs around Dean and into the backyard, where her backyard is torn to _shreds_. Her money is gone. “Son of a bitch!”  _Everything_ she's worked for is gone, vanished, without a trace. All the nerves she felt returning thousands of dollars of merchandise bought with fake cash, all the time she spent sorting red and blue and white and green pills from each other, all the anxiety and fear she felt dropping those cars in sketchy neighborhoods, waiting for Annie or Ruby to pick her up— _poof_ , there's nothing to show for it now. 

It takes her a minute to recoup before she walks back into the kitchen. Dean is still trying to speak in muffled nonsense, and Beth realizes that it’s her _underwear_ making him talk like that.

“Dean,” she says, rolling her eyes, exasperated, realizing that there’s no mechanism actually keeping the underwear stuffed in his mouth. “Spit them out! Jesus. There’s no reason for those to still be in your mouth.” Can he figure out anything without her around? 

Dean looks at her, shocked, before opening his mouth and letting the underwear just... fall out. He smacks his tongue and lips together, trying to get the microfibers out of his mouth. The noise is disgusting, and Beth's sympathy is swirling down the drain.

“Beth,” he snaps. “Cut me out! For god’s sake.”

“What _happened_?!”

“We were robbed!”

“I can  _see_ that!” God, she could scream. “I’m not an idiot. How did they know where the money was?”

“Just untie me,” Dean demands, deflecting.

“Dean,” she says sternly. “How did they know where my _money was_?”

Dean catches the switch from _the_ money to _my_ money, but Beth’s not sorry. She earned it, not him. He had no claim to it, and she's pretty sure they're broke again because of him and him alone.  

“Untie me, goddammit it.”

Beth makes a strangled noise of frustration and walks over to the island to yank the scissors out of the junk drawer. She’s rough as she jerks Dean’s wrists to her and starts cutting the duct tape. She wants to rip the duct tape right off his skin, have it pull all his little tiny hairs right out, but she manages just this much self-control. When his hands are free, she chucks the scissors onto his lap so he can cut his own goddamn legs out. 

Is this really her life? The weight of everything hangs over her like a cloud: Ruby, the FBI, and now the money and Dean. Dean has put her and children's lives at risk  _again_. Is this her reward for allowing him to come home? She flares with anger—at him, at herself. Why didn't she kick him back out after she'd found out he'd  _faked cancer_? 

She wants to borrow Rio's crowbar and smash something. 

While he’s working on freeing himself, Beth starts loading the dishwasher angrily, making lots of unnecessary noise, huffing and puffing through it. 

When Dean is finally able to stand up, she wheels around and demands an answer. He’s rubbing at his wrists. Beth can’t muster up any sympathy for him, though.

"What happened, Dean?" 

“It was just—these kids.”

“What kids? Why? Why were they at our house?”

“I hired them…” Dean says.

“To do _what_?” Beth demands. “What on earth could you hire them for that would require you to dig up my money?! Is this what your ‘lunch thing’ was?”

“I don’t understand you, Beth,” Dean says quietly. “I’m just trying to do what’s best for my family. _Our_ family.”

“Which is what, Dean? What _is_ that?” Beth sputters. “Is it losing all of our money so we can all live on the street together? Is that what’s _best_?” She spits out the last word.

“You know what? Maybe it is.”

“What are you even _talking_ about!” 

“I’d rather be homeless than have to keep dealing with—with _him_ ,” Dean says.

“Who?” Beth can barely think straight, she’s seeing so much red. Is this really about Rio? Now? They're not even in a bad place. They're getting along! Dean's healed from the gunshot wound, they're making money off of the partnership with the dealership, so what's he all wound up about that he wasn't before? He doesn't even have to  _see_  Rio. 

“Him! Neck Tats!” Dean throws his hands up in the air. “He’s ruining our lives, Beth!”

“Ugh!” Beth says, and she throws a plastic cup at him. Dean dodges it, and it smacks against the wall and thuds onto the floor. Dean’s lack of accountability crawls up under Beth’s skin and lodges there like a giant tumor, pressing against her windpipe. She can’t breathe, she’s so angry. First Ruby, now this? Jesus, Rio’s the only one _not_ suffocating her at this point. 

“You know it’s true,” Dean whispers. He won't look at her.

“No, Dean, it’s not,” Beth says. “It’s just not.”

“Our lives were _better_ before he—”

“Stop. Enough with the bullshit,” Beth says, and she says it with such force that Dean actually does shut up for a second. “What did you hire these kids to _do_?”

Dean looks ashamed for a minute. “You know…” he trails off. “Go after him. Scare him.”

Beth barks out a laugh. Dean had hired _children_ to _scare_ a gangbanger? And not just any gangbanger, the _boss_! The laugh turns almost maniacal. God, how can he be so stupid! He was _there_ , he saw the whole thing when Rio slid that gun across the table to Beth, daring her to shoot him. He saw Rio _laugh_ as the barrel was pointing at his face. She tries to imagine what scares Rio, but comes up empty.

Beth sobers, and then says, very slowly, as if she's spelling it out for someone very, very stupid, “You mean to tell me that you hired _kids_ to scare the man that scares _you_? And then you got robbed blind by those same kids?”

“Okay, well,” Dean’s face contorts as if she’s being absurd. “You’re not getting it. Whatever.”

"You're an idiot," Beth sighs. “Tell me, Dean. How were they supposed to scare him? Can you even imagine for one second what it would actually take to scare him?”

"Doesn't that scare _you_?" Dean asks, incredulous. 

"No!" Beth says. 

"It should. He's dangerous, Beth, and—and—"

"He would never hurt me," Beth says this quietly but firmly. Dean's eyes bug out of his head.

“Stop defending him!” Dean shakes his head. “You’re always—”

He stops talking when Beth shakes her head and starts ignoring him. She turns her back to him and pulls a glass out of the cupboard. He stares at her as she walks away from him to the bar cart in the den. She pours herself a large glass of bourbon and takes a swig.

“You going to get the money back?” she asks him. “Clean up your own messes for once?”

“Wh-what?” Dean bleats. “H-how could I do that? I don’t… I don’t—”

“Fine,” Beth says with finality. “I guess he’ll just have to help us, won’t he?” Beth’s fronting. Rio will tell her to deal with it herself, she knows that, but Dean doesn’t, and she knows the comment is the knife digging in deeper. 

Out of nowhere, Dean asks, “What was in the package?”

“The package?”   

“Yeah, the one he left for you the other night.” He stares at his feet. 

“What does that have to do with anything?” Beth wants to laugh at him. Is that why he got himself into this mess? The mysterious package?

He sticks his lower lip out. “Just my own curiosity, I guess.”

Whatever. Who _cares_ anymore? “Jane’s dubby, Dean. That's what was in the package.”

“What?” Dean asks. This was not what he was expecting, not even close. “How did he get it?”

“I left it,” Beth admits. She's about to say "at a job" but then she decides against it. Let the ambiguity linger, let Dean think that she'd left it at Rio's _house_. Dean stares hard at her. She can see the wheels spinning in his head, but she’s exhausted, she’s over it.

She walks past him into her bedroom and slams the door. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really wanted to expand the scene when Beth has to save Dean from his own mess, and it turns out writing a Beth/Dean fight scene is _really_ fun. Wanted to include an original Rio scene, though, and was intrigued by having them interact in front of people from Beth's world. Not sure how well it works, but I do love Dad!Rio.

**Author's Note:**

> I just really like Rio and Beth with an audience, so I thought "let's put 'em together with some other suburban housewives." Also I just really like seeing Rio in dad mode.


End file.
